‘We Met the Enemy and He is Us’: Domestic Politics and South Africa’s Role in Promoting African Democracy

Abstract

South Africa’s post-apartheid foreign policy has disappointed scholars andactivists who expected the post-apartheid state to promote democracy andhuman rights in Africa and the world, and who complain that it has failedto fulfill that promise.This paper examines South Africa’s role in democracy promotion since1994 and, in particular, the argument that it intended to promote rightsand freedoms in Africa but was forced to change its approach by powerrealities on the continent. It finds this explanation wanting and argues thatthe core goal of foreign policy of the post-apartheid government was not topromote democracy, but rather, merely to prove white racism wrong.Since 1994, the African National Congress-led government has been awarethat much of white opinion, at home and abroad, expects majority ruledAfrican societies to fail. Its prime concern, therefore, has been to refute theprejudice that black Africans cannot run successful societies. It is this concernwhich has underpinned foreign policy: the aim has been to projectAfrica as a continent whose states are measuring up to the Northern modelof a successful society. Hence, democracy promotion has been only a meansto that end, and this is the major factor responsible for its uneven andsporadic application.